34. Silence

“It is the day of Kata’s funeral. The whole town of Horvorr appears to have been put under a spell of silence.

The widow himself, a man I had once confused for my elder, looked so very young while he watched his wife burn. Grettir did not opt for a traditional pyre, and instead burned his own boat, which he had once procured at great expense in the hopes that he might fish the Great Lake and put the awful war behind him.

So strange to see fear in the eyes of a fighter hitherto fearless. So disquieting to see pain in a warrior who had never worn his wounds before.

I realized then that I had always hated Grettir. For being the hero I have long pretended to be.”

Grettir’s hirsute face had been weighed by a hopeless sort of exhaustion.

His wary gaze wandered between the mossy trunks of a gloomy forest. He had only been here once before, after Gudmund took Horvorr and he had been tasked with running down any goblins that managed an escape. He hoped his nightmares were reminders of the slaughter passed, and not some warning of blood to come.

He and Sybille had crossed from the plains of Horvorr into the valley forest that led up through the mountains towards Wymount. They had camped in a clearing among the trees. Sybille slept on a bedroll beside the horses, contented in their own rest after having eaten of the greenery. They hadn’t rode in two days because the ground of the forest was uneven, skewered by great roots that would only end up breaking the horse’s legs.

Grettir’s heart thumped in his chest for no real reason. He had nothing to fear. But then he did have everything to regret. His life had been a long, long stretch of those.

Though it had started fine enough.

He’d been a known man in Vendrick. He’d been a guard to a Jarl’s daughter. Like Engli. Only Grettir fought a lot worse and a lot more often. They’d loved him in Vendrick. She’d loved him. He’d stolen Kata from her home, with her blessing, after failing to secure her father’s. And that was all Grettir ever really wanted or needed.

Or so he thought. He’d had coin, enough to live by, but his reputation was blackened. And enough to live by didn’t make for a good life, or anywhere near the life of old. Kata had become unhappy. Grettir lost all purpose. If he was honest with himself, he might have even joined up with the deposed Jarl of Weskin because Gudmund was trying to conquer a region where Grettir might find an honorable death.

Grettir didn’t. He found a lot of that but not his own. He caused a lot of that but not his own. And those men that came to know him came to love him as well. And, somewhere along the way, Grettir was himself again and Kata was herself again. He had found himself and he had found the woman he loved. And then she said that she was pregnant and all seemed well with the world. He watched her belly swell. He helped her through the long nights. And then, in the final hour, she died.

Not like Hilda had. No. Grettir’s happiest day became the beginning of a funeral.

And so he was alone. Lost again.

But he found some solace in raising his best friend’s children. He had, had a family of sorts. He still had his place among Horvorr’s Guard. He would never love again, not in that way, but that was fine by him. He didn’t want to suffer the false hopes and crippling losses any more than once. But he had suffered them all the same. Not in quick succession as that would have been a mercy. This went the same as his marriage. He got to watch the boys grow into men and then watch the men get torn into corpses.

Grettir was shaking. He wanted to vomit or weep but he did neither.

He made a mistake betraying Gudmund. He knew that. But he would not watch as another person he loved died. He refused to be a survivor. He couldn’t suffer any more grief or any more guilt. He’d suffered far too much.

Grettir tried to cover his face with both hands, which left him half blind.

Sybille, still laid on her bedroll, was squinting up at him. “Grettir?”

“We need to go to, Sybille,” he replied without inflection. “Get ready to leave.”

Grettir struggled up and walked to wake the horses. He hadn’t hobbled them, because they seemed hungry and amiable enough. He thought they might even share some affinity with him, having spent years trapped in Horvorr, to now finally be set free, to feel the earth beneath their feet, smell the forest, and listen to the trees creak in the breeze. But then he wasn’t really free, so he might have just been too tired to tie their legs.

“Sybille,” Grettir urged, seeing she had closed her eyes. “Sybille…? Sybille!”

Grettir’s harsh voice carried along the forest floor, between trunks, branches and sighing leaves, until it reached the misshapen ears of a monstrous goblin with a burnt and blackened face.

Balluk’s strangled roar ripped through the silence of the valley forest.

Sybille started awake. “What was that?”

“Nothing good.” Grettir stared into the darkness, hearing the savage echo of that distant call. “Grab your horse.”

***

Sybille ran out from under the shadows of the valley forest at an unsteady pace. They had crossed onto the flat plain that served as a corridor for the winding mountain routes that led up to Wymount, or offered descent to the villages that fished from icy shores. There were three settlements along the plain itself, nestled into the mountains, protected by low stone walls.

Grettir could only hope that Sybille would be able to reach them.

He followed behind her, leading a maddened horse. He wanted to calm it, but needed to keep his hand on the reins. He felt sick with the memory of cutting the other horse’s throat, but it had tripped and broken a leg.

He couldn’t leave the animal to suffer the scratches and bites of jeering goblins.

“Sybille!” Grettir shouted after her, urging his horse to a stop. “Come here!”

“You said—” Sybille turned back, wolfing breaths, her face flushed near as red as her hair. “We need to keep running. Not stop.”

“Good that you remembered, Sybille,” Grettir joked, his eyes humorless. “I’m going to tell you to do something now. And I want you to do it.” He glanced back to the shadowed trees. “All right?”

“I can keep running. Let’s keep running. There’s a village not far away.”

“Too far away,” Grettir said. “Even a cripple of a goblin will be on us before we get there. I need you to take this horse, and I need you to go and get help. It can’t carry us both, Sybille, and you’re lighter than I am.”

The horse rapped hooves against hard ground, struggling against Grettir’s grip.

“I’m not leaving you,” Sybille answered, “and I’m not riding a mad horse.”

“It just wants to run, Sybille. It doesn’t care if you’re on its back. And you are leaving me, because you’ll do what I gods-damned tell you to do!” He scowled at her. “Now climb on this horse, or I’ll hit you on the head and tie you on!”

“I’m not going to leave you to die.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Sybille,” Grettir growled. “We’re both going to die if you don’t get on this horse! If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I can survive on foot. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again. But I can’t do it if you’re slowing me down!” He appeared no calmer than the horse. “Now climb on!”

“I can’t—”

“I thought you said you trusted me.” Grettir stared at her in desperation. “So trust me.”

Sybille thought for a short moment before nodding. The horse made a slight struggle as she pulled herself up and onto its back, but it grew calmer when turned to face the sunlit plain of pinks, whites and greys. “I’ll wait at the village north of here.”

“When you make it to the village,” Grettir said, “tell them they need to flee to Wymount. Tell anyone you meet that. Do you understand? This isn’t a joke, Sybille. These people are all going to die if you don’t warn them.”

Sybille’s fair face grew resolute. “You’ll meet me in Wymount?”

“Goodbye, Sybille.” Grettir smiled in parting, let the reins loose, and slapped the horse’s flank. He wanted to say more. How much he loved her. How glad he was to have watched over her and what pride he’d felt in seeing what a fine young woman she’d become. But the words caught in his throat, and he betrayed himself with a feeble silence.

Sybille though, tears in her eyes, turned back to him.

She opened her mouth to speak, but a thrown stone struck her square in the head, knocking her down and into the horse’s mane. She teetered, and her sagging arms fell at either side of the neck, anchoring her even as the horse cantered away in panic.

A shrill horn sounded from the trees behind Grettir, sending birds flying and small animals skittering across the forest floor. He barely heard more horns blare out, felt no anger like he had when Agnar or Geirmund had fallen. He watched in silence as she grew more distant, as the horse and his goddaughter disappeared into the dawn horizon.

***

Balluk kept his mangled iron club at his back as he approached his clan. The porcine goblins had encircled a one-armed man, who seemed to be doing not much at all.

“Is he dead?” Balluk asked, burnt flesh of his neck still causing him pain. He stepped through the goblins as they scrambled clear. “Are you dead?” He poked the manling’s stub arm with a long finger. “Better to answer now before I rip off your head.”

Grettir snarled, sweeping out his axe, missing entirely because Balluk jumped back.

Balluk landed on bony heels and laughed strangled laughter. “I know you, don’t I?” He narrowed his ferine eyes. “I saw you at the battle, carving through my clans, carving through cowards. What is your name, one-armed man? Tell me and I will speak of it to others. I will speak of how you died an honourable death.”

Grettir spat onto the snow. “You’ve no honor to give me.” He glared up at a goblin almost twice his height; a misshapen creature of elongated bones and corded muscles, covered by grimy green flesh, shaded with pale scars, dark bruises, and unhealed wounds.

Balluk bared yellowed fangs. “He speaks!”

“Mistook yourself for meat?” Grettir nodded to the blackened neck and face. “Overcooked by the look of you.”

Balluk leaned closer. He smelled of old meat, burnt flesh, and decay. He buffeted Grettir with a long and rancid breath. “Clever. But too much time sharpening the tongue leaves little time for your axe.”

“You’d know.” Grettir shrugged a shoulder. “Stood watching me fight while Ragadin died. Stood watching me fight while I carved through your clan, while the biggest coward was out—” He dropped to the floor to avoid a sweeping claw, then rolled off to the side to come clear of a stomping foot.

Balluk barked laughter. “Quick. Good that you’re quick.” Ferine eyes went wide now he roared at his clan. “Get clear!”

The porcine goblins stepped back, leaving a large ring of barren ground between Grettir and Balluk.

“You knew Ragadin?” Balluk reached for his iron club, mangled metal still flecked with scraps of flesh.

Grettir nodded, back on his feet with an axe to hand. “He was worth knowing. Not sure I’ve ever heard of you.”

Balluk grinned. “The name Balluk will be spoken in whispers and screams before this war is done. I’ll put an end to the Fire Giant that slew Ragadin, to Gudmund the Wolf, his brother, the Black, and even Grettir the One Swing.”

Grettir’s smile was wry. “Brolli is already dead.”

“Must have gotten old.” Balluk grunted. “Who slew him?”

Balluk’s clan watched the posturing with confused faces, scratching at their flat noses and muttering to one another.

“The Fire Giant.”

Balluk licked at his fangs. “Did Gudmund the Wolf not clamour for revenge?”

“In a way he did, but the Fire Giant has left Horvorr.” Grettir wondered at the goblin’s delay. “Are we going to fight?”

“I hadn’t thought you’d be in such a hurry to die.” Balluk shrugged his bony shoulders. “I sit in company with babbling idiots, and I grew hearing the names of these warriors. Is it so surprising that I would have an interest?”

“I suppose not,” Grettir admitted in his harsh voice, “but I think you’ll be disappointed. Your Fire Giant isn’t much bigger than me, and all the names you’ve mentioned are just the names of men. Men that are getting old. Men who are no longer a match for a monstrous thing like you.”

“What would you know?” Balluk shook his misshapen head. “These are manlings that brought an end to Gahr’rul, that slaughtered thousands of my kind. You mean to tell me they’re no different from you? Some nameless one-armed wretch without honor or clan… beyond that woman, who had her skull broken open by a stone.”

Grettir stared up as if sorrowed. “My name is Grettir.”

“Do you think me a fool?” Balluk snapped. “Grettir isn’t named One Swing because he has one arm. He is named it because he killed a troll in a single blow, or it was a tree, or a yeti. Either way, whatever it was he hacked or cut, he had both arms about him when he did.”

Grettir gripped his worn axe. “Balluk the Burnt, I challenge you.”

Balluk’s eyes widened. “You can’t name me! If you don’t have—”

He stepped back now Grettir charged him, clear of an axe swing. Grettir twisted away from Balluk’s swipe, hacked at his wrist before he pulled back. He ducked low under the goblin’s other arm, and drove his head up into an open cut. Balluk snarled and tried to grab hold of Grettir’s back, but the man ducked down between the goblin’s bowed legs. Grettir hacked at an ankle, then got sent stumbling by a heel to the jaw.

Balluk roared around, sweeping his long club. Grettir leapt back and mangled iron gouged his leather armour.

“Stop fighting like a rabbit!” Balluk made another wide swing and Grettir leapt further back. He swung down and Grettir stepped clear, then Balluk twisted his great frame, sweeping Grettir’s feet out with the club. “Hah.”

Balluk brought down the club but the man rolled out of the way.

Grettir got to his feet and rushed towards a wall of frightened goblins. They flinched, but then held their ground and grunted. He kicked one out of the way, stepping over the goblin now Balluk’s club ripped through his own clan.

“Coward!” Balluk screamed. “Stand and fight!”

Grettir turned, his whole weight behind a desperate throw. He hurled his axe true, but the blade snapped free from the wooden handle, clunking to the ground.

Balluk had flinched for the blow, and now scowled in confusion. He laughed at the man’s misfortune, lowering his club so that he had no chance to swing now Grettir charged him. Balluk thought he looked more than the man he had seen earlier, wild brown beard glistening with sweat, scarred skin red, his green eyes wild.

He entertained the belief that this was indeed the One Swing.

Grettir bulled into Balluk with one arm wide, hoping to drag the goblin from his feet. His head thumped into Balluk’s groin and he stopped dead between the goblin’s legs. Grettir dropped fully to the floor, clear of a clawed grip, and started to saw through Balluk’s heel with his knife.

Balluk staggered back, snarling, trying to hop and kick at Grettir. He remembered his iron club, and lifted it up so he could swing it between his ankles.

Grettir dived clear when he did, meaning the goblin only ripped bone from his own ankles. Balluk twisted into a circular swing but Grettir ducked under the club. He carried weight on his heels for a lower sweep that Grettir barely leapt over.

Grettir tried to straighten from the ground—agony surged through his spasming back. He staggered over to the gargantuan goblin. He only had the strength to grapple at the green and muscular belly. He drove a knife in, replied by a bony fist to the jaw.

Balluk watched the hairy manling stagger back and collapse.

He swept a disgusted gaze across his clan, then his ferine eyes softened as he looked back to his foe. “Good fight, Grettir.”

Grettir struggled for breath. He tried to rise but fell forward.

Balluk the Burnt dipped his misshapen head in respect. “I will keep the name you gave me.”

Grettir barely saw the crowd of goblins around him, but knew he was part of a show that he didn’t want to be in. He waited for the blackness to consume him, knew he was headed for the Lady’s Shadow, that there was nowhere else to go when her creatures ate your flesh. And he almost thought that he deserved that fate.

He’d been the death of all those he loved. He’d failed to trust his truest friend. So he didn’t move or complain because he had no wish to delay his fate.

Balluk the Burnt took a deep breath and stretched his blackened neck. He brought down his club, listened to the thump and crunch. He watched blood pool from the manling’s broken skull, then looked again to his clan, who licked their lips in anticipation. “Gather wood!” Balluk commanded. “Build me a pyre!”

A few argued. Those that did fed those that didn’t.